sergei wrote:Mikey287's point about era-oriented ratings is worth pursuing.

Are there statistics databases that show how players did in terms of gpg, apg, ppg, +/-, etc. etc.relatively to other players (or, say, the league average) in a season or over their careers?

There are clunky formulas for adjusted numbers, but they don't anyone any justice really. When you're dealing with star players like we are, you can rely on a host of things besides points per game to make an argument which is good. How they fare in MVP races, Post-Season All-Star teams, etc. to help shape an even more complete picture. Everyone gets points, it's not all that accurate of a measurement when you have 100+ years of hockey to look through...

I wouldn't dismiss adjusted numbers so readily. Hypothetically, a player who averaged, say 1.5 pts. per game throughout his career, with the average pts. per game per player during that time frame being, say .75 pts.per game, is not as impressive as a player who averaged 1.25 pts. per game during a time frame when the league average was .35 pts. per game. (I have no idea what actual ppg league averages are; these examples are just for the sake of argument).

Conversely, while awards say something, I wouldn't put too much stock in them, especially awards that are voted on by anyone except for the players themselves, as the players' hype and popularity can play into the voting. Gretzky was very outgoing and, like Sid, very much a spokesman for the NHL during his playing days, while Mario was very reclusive, sort of the anti-Gretzky. There are players that everybody likes, and players, like Tom Barasso for example, who wouldn't be able to get any media types to vote for him if his life depended on it. The personality factor can't be dismissed.

If we include everybody that ever played for the Pens, I'd have to put Luc Robitaille even above Malkin at this point. He topped 50 goals 3 times and 100 points 4 times, including a 63 goal, 62 assist season. He finished his 18 yr career with 0.97 ppg, but averaged 1.25 ppg his first 10 seasons (including the strike-shortened 1994-95 with the Pens).

I'd have to disagree pretty strongly with that. Robitaille is a Hall of Famer, but he played one lockout shortened season for the Pens after the peak of his career. If you're talking about great players that played for the Pens, that's one thing, but there are many players that should be ahead of him in terms of their Penguins careers. Even then, I'm not sure you could put Robitaille above Malkin. Malkin's got two scoring titles, a Hart, and a Conn Smythe. That trumps Robitaille and there aren't many players in general who have all of those on their resume. I'm not positive but you could probably count the number of players who have all three of those awards on one hand.

I'd say top five Pens all-time is Lemieux, Jagr, Crosby, Malkin, and Francis in that order and it's not really even debatable. By the end of their careers, both Crosby and Malkin should probably surpass Jagr if they stay in Pitt and stay healthy.

Re: adjusted numbers. Yeah, you can't throw them out entirely. But just stats in general aren't a great way to decipher anything, history included. I mean, it sticks out that Marino, Moon and Fouts are still in that top-20 all-time for passing yards/game when every other player is basically active in the league still...sure, you don't throw that out entirely. But clearly there's some cloudiness there. Adjusting the numbers for era might help paint a slightly better picture, but it'd still be very, very rough...

For instance, adjust Howie Morenz's season in 1928 for era. His 51 points (no one else had 40), in a season where their were only 3.8 goals per game scored (roughly two less than today) and only 0.5 assists per goal were handed out (today, 1.72!)...Morenz season adjusts from 51 points to damn near 200! Sometimes pure mathematics can deceive us. That said, Morenz was an absolutely dominant player and had a season to remember certainly.

- You would think awards voted on by the players would hold more value, but alas, the players let us down. I would guess that the players would bring more insight into it...naming someone that is impossible to get by defensively, or impossible to stop offensively or something of the sort...something from ice level that a writer couldn't gleam...but really, the Pearson/Lindsay doesn't provide any real value to me or most of the historical community because it's unclear what exactly it's purpose is...

Daniel Sedin's win in 2011 is highly dubious, in my opinion, I don't think that needs explaining. He's not the best anything in the NHL.

Yzerman's win in '89 also has a weird feel to it because of Lemieux's season...

Bobby Orr only won it once, which is a travesty in its own right and one time he lost it to Jean Ratelle of all players...

I would just guess it award players for something the media missed OR it would award the very best player at something...but historically, outside of obvious choices: 99, 66, 68 - who have won almost a third of them - it doesn't really tell us anything about anyone.

Now, I'm highly suspect of award voting now...but in a smaller league with writers that actually knew the game, I think the votes have value. Today, less so, but still more than the Lindsay award...a trophy that could be banished and no one would bat an eye-lash...

Yeah, at this point to me, it's Lemieux, Jagr, Crosby, and Malkin. I think Crosby and Malkin will most likely pass Jagr, but it isn't a definite right now. As much as I don't like Jagr's off ice crap, he was an amazing player when here for a pretty long stretch.

Mikey - it's almost like we had draft or something about this type of thing

One was the best player on the planet, one was never the best player on the team. I respect what Francis did here big time, I love the quiet two-way guy that does all the little things with the high attention to detail. But there isn't enough faceoffs in the world for him to take that could broach what Jagr did in his time here. It's simply not close.

We simply have a different criteria for defining greatness in the context of the Pittsburgh Penguins, something entirely subjective. To me, it's a balance of talent and leadership, offense and defense, clutch plays and consistency. Composure and poise take precedence over emotion and bravado. The good done for the team is offset by the bad. Contribution to team accomplishments are more important than individual accomplishments.

Jagr is a special player and in terms of talent and singular offensive domination, one of the greatest ever. Maybe top five. Maybe second only to Mario. However, he had a lot of faults, and his Penguins are defined by his scoring titles more than anything else. In my opinion, he was a mediocre leader and left the Penguins with a tarnished reputation. In my opinion, he was not a required component to the cup wins in the 90s.

In my eyes, Mario, Francis and Barrasso were all essential to the 90s cups. Francis was a perfect leader, role model and the symmetry of offense and defense to his game was nearly perfect. He sacrificed stature and big money for winning. He did whatever was necessary for the team to win without complaint. Furthermore, I think his guidance was essential to the success of Jagr, and he slowly unraveled mentally without him. I don't recall Francis ever sulking. I'm sure it happened, but I don't recall him losing his cool. He left the Pens with his head high.

But like I said, this is all subjective. All opinion. Nonetheless, that's my reasoning.

Ever stop to think that my 25 might be Carlyle and not Stevens? My 10 is not lucky Pierre though.

I was in the Navy during much of the Paul Coffey years. No Center Ice back then so being overseas so much I missed so much. I guess that is no excuse though. In those days, I got box scores a day after the games were played.

pronovost19 wrote:Ever stop to think that my 25 might be Carlyle and not Stevens?

Not at all

But they did go back to back in the Penguins All-Time Draft (12th & 13th, respectively)...I personally think Stevens' contribution to the team on an all-time level is greater than that of Carlyle's...but I'm sure it's fairly close...

mikey287 wrote:He's not really all that close to #2 right now to be honest...there's a pretty sizable gap between him and Jagr...whether anyone wants to admit that or not...

I completely and respectfully disagree.

I think once Crosby passes Jagr's 1079 career point totals with Pittsburgh, Crosby should be called 2nd best Penguin player ever.

Welp, respectfully, just straight point totals is a terrible way to look at anything. Because by that same logic, then Crosby hasn't passed Rick Kehoe yet for all-time Penguins contributions and we all know he blows Kehoe's doors off...

And being that Crosby is over 400 points behind Jagr which is maybe four seasons away, you do pretty much agree. If a player has to spend another 25% of his career trying to catch another, they aren't that close...

Career point totals + Cups.

Kehoe 0, but back to the Jagr thing...Jagr won 2 cups with the Pens, was a decent part of them both. However Crosby captained the team to a cup which is bigger in my book.

Why? It looked like he was really slowing down in his last year with us and he wasn't a prize pig defensively. We got a 1st round pick that became Doug Bodger which became Tom Barrasso. And we got Moe Mantha, who was a more than adequate replacement for Carlyle in the mean time and then was a part of the massive trade to get Coffey. It was a good time to trade an asset and we got a good return and we parlayed the good return into crucial pieces to win a Stanley Cup. Carlyle, meanwhile, rarely ever made it out of the first round on his teams...

mikey287 wrote:He's not really all that close to #2 right now to be honest...there's a pretty sizable gap between him and Jagr...whether anyone wants to admit that or not...

I completely and respectfully disagree.

I think once Crosby passes Jagr's 1079 career point totals with Pittsburgh, Crosby should be called 2nd best Penguin player ever.

Welp, respectfully, just straight point totals is a terrible way to look at anything. Because by that same logic, then Crosby hasn't passed Rick Kehoe yet for all-time Penguins contributions and we all know he blows Kehoe's doors off...

And being that Crosby is over 400 points behind Jagr which is maybe four seasons away, you do pretty much agree. If a player has to spend another 25% of his career trying to catch another, they aren't that close...

Why? It looked like he was really slowing down in his last year with us and he wasn't a prize pig defensively. We got a 1st round pick that became Doug Bodger which became Tom Barrasso. And we got Moe Mantha, who was a more than adequate replacement for Carlyle in the mean time and then was a part of the massive trade to get Coffey. It was a good time to trade an asset and we got a good return and we parlayed the good return into crucial pieces to win a Stanley Cup. Carlyle, meanwhile, rarely ever made it out of the first round on his teams...

Why? It looked like he was really slowing down in his last year with us and he wasn't a prize pig defensively. We got a 1st round pick that became Doug Bodger which became Tom Barrasso. And we got Moe Mantha, who was a more than adequate replacement for Carlyle in the mean time and then was a part of the massive trade to get Coffey. It was a good time to trade an asset and we got a good return and we parlayed the good return into crucial pieces to win a Stanley Cup. Carlyle, meanwhile, rarely ever made it out of the first round on his teams...

I agree that the return was fine, but to say Carlyle's teams rarely made it out of the first round and to hold that against him is kind of crazy in my opinion. When you have to go through either the Oilers or Flames every year in the 80s, you aren't going to make it far in the playoffs much.

- If Jagr not being able to lead a 1.5 or two-line team to Cups is being used against him, if the formula of "career points + Cups" is being used to determine success, then Carlyle not making it out of the first round very often is being used against him too. Why should I have to use context?

Jagr > Crosby at the moment. Jagr carried teams on his back for years with sub-par talent. He dominated an era of interference (clutch and grab) by being one of the most dominant forces in his prime. Look at these accolades: